


Delicious to Think Of

by musicforswimming



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Community: kink_bingo, Dirty Talk, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Mild Kink, Pastries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicforswimming/pseuds/musicforswimming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary has trouble convincing Anna to stand less on ceremony, and she has trouble convincing anyone else to stand more on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Delicious to Think Of

**Author's Note:**

> Space pastry shop AU. I...have no explanation. *hands* Title is from the poem [On the Disadvantages of Central Heating](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15216), by Amy Clampitt.

Three days after Lady Mary dragged it from her father that he didn't intend to challenge the will, Anna noticed that she'd begun experimenting with the labels. The D in the name grew ever larger, more pronounced, like marshmallow mix left to swell up beneath the beaters. She came in now and then to see to it that Anna's putting the little candy D on, or spelling it out in chocolate or icing, as appropriate. They landed an order for the breakfast for the first day of the Oppseian Duchess's wedding, and Anna very nearly had to restrain her bodily to stop her adding a D on all the little pastries, right between the initials of the two families.

"These are two planets that have only just declared a truce, my lady," Anna said, though Mary was the last person who should need to be reminded of that, "I really don't think our starting up hostilities again is going to help the business any, do you?"

A great sigh. "I suppose."

Anna failed to stifle her laughter at the thoughtful look on her boss's face, and finally, off Mary's glare, explained. "You sound like your grandmother, miss."

"Bite your tongue," Mary said, and then, smiling, "but I suppose she knows a thing or two. Anyway, if I were so very much like her, I wouldn't remind you not to bother with the honorifics. It's not like it means anything. Not where it matters, anyway."

"It matters to me, miss," Anna said, and Mary looked up from the dolinberry tarts.

"I know it does," she admitted. "Thank you for that, Anna. Well—not the addresses, I really _do_ wish you'd learn to just say ‘Mary', but—that it matters at all."

"I understand, my—" She managed to stop, but she couldn't bring herself to say ‘Mary', yet, either, and so, quickly, she just repeated, "I understand."

Mary smiled back down at the tarts again, and then she kissed Anna's cheek. Only the speed with which she left the kitchen after that convinced Anna that it had really happened. The way she was blushing—well, it might just have been the oven, after all.

 

The wedding was on the surface. The boxes were small enough for disentanglement transport, but Mary always swore that you could taste the difference.

"They're exactly the same," Anna said, as she had a thousand times previously, "on an atomic level, Mary. A _sub-_ atomic level. There is, on a chemical, physical, and _quantum_ level, absolutely no difference."

"I'm telling you—" But she paused, and blinked at Anna, who felt her own eyes widen. She hadn't realized what she was saying until it was said already.

"Sorry," she mumbled, but Mary simply grinned, and took Anna's hand in her own, right there on the ferry, never mind that she had to put her boxes down to do so.

"I had wondered when you would work up the nerve," she said, and her face was so smug that Anna burst out laughing then and there.

"What?" Mary asked, the picture of noble affront.

"You look like the cat that ate the canary, that's all," Anna said. "Anyone would think I'd never surprised you in my life."

"Well, perhaps you haven't," Mary said, and the sparkle in her dark eyes was more than provocation enough for Anna. She leaned over then and kissed her—and a real one this time, not like the friendly little peck from that day in the kitchen.

"What about that, Mary?" she asked, a little breathless, still too close to really get any kind of focus on Mary, who consumed her entire field of vision. She put a little more emphasis on her name this time, and Mary's quiet, sharp intake of breath was all she needed to take the strange spring warmth in her heart to a true summer heat.

"That," Mary begain, and then, for the first time Anna had known her, she said nothing else, only breathed deeply once more.

Anna felt her own self smirk this time, and Mary laughed, a little breathlessly, and raised Anna's hand to her mouth. "Do you know," she said, kissing the back of Anna's hand, "I never really thought much of my own name before today."

"I don't know why," Anna said, as the ferry reached planetside, and she pressed her free hand to the cart's panel, unlocking it again. "It's a lovely name, really. Mary Crawley."

“Yes,” Mary said, and Anna thrilled at the very slight unsteadiness in her voice—and, further, at the knowledge that she was the only one here who could possibly recognize it as such. "So I'm starting to understand."


End file.
